Last night I ‘linked’ a friend this hilarious story, and then I ended up going waaayyyyy back to the beginning and reading the whole darned thing over.

It’s a miracle I didn’t wake up everyone on the block, because by 2am I could barely breathe any more for laughing. So just in case anyone was wondering, yeah… it’s still hilarious the second time around.

As the time for the end of this epic draws nigh, I am forced to wonder what will happen next, that is after the game is complete.

I was wondering the same thing as Zudrak, perhaps all of the players would join up once again to play Star Wars. After all, (DM of the Rings XLI: A New Hope) our DM said he would run the campaign when this one was finished.
And the other players seemed interested in playing as well.
If it came to be, I wonder, would our Middle Earth DM be the DM or a player.. I can’t imagine a campaign where one of these other guys was trying to DM.
P.S. Would they force Legolas to be princess Leia?

As always, your story is superb and hilarious.
It’s funny because its true. >;p

Oh, just saw the YouTube video of Aragorn to ‘Eye of the Tiger’. I almost forgot how cool he was in the movies – Shamus’ ScreenCap Kungfu is most impressive…

And as a DM, I tend to set up an environment, give the NPCs their personality and agenda, and let the interaction work itself out. I’ve had groups slaughtered, groups barely make it through, and groups fired and replaced by an NPC group that actually cared about what was needed to be done… Little railroading though – if they wanted to do something else, I’d let the previous situation resolve itself to its natural conclusion in the background.

If I had dentures, they’d have come out and smashed to pieces on my monitor with the first post … too funny! Hmmm, is that a premonition for the next series? NO, stop that! Let the artist announce it in due time!

“The best sort of player revolt is when they refuse to listen to your advice, but end up doing what you wanted them to do anyway.”

Yep. It’s a total win-win situation. The players are left with the illusion that they have successfully thwarted the will of the DM and remain in perfect control of the campaign. Meanwhile the DM laughs softly to himself while re-adjusting the settings on the brainwashing laser satellites.

Notice that the “Have it your way” smirk on Gandalf’s face is the same as on Obi Wan’s in Ep IV’s “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”. I think Gandalf pulled out a can of Force whoop-ass on the weak-minded Viggo here.

A co-worker sent me the link to this, cuz he knew what a lotr fan i am, and i have read through all the comics and i don’t remember the last time i have laughed so hard. These comics are the best thing to start my day of work, puts a smile on my face every time. Thx Shamus for all the work you do to make others happy!

One way to have short-term success in railroading a campaign would probably be to have a hated GM-PC advise the players to do the exact opposite of what the GM wanted them to do. Their natural disobedience would keep them on rails and convinced that they’re masters of their own destinies (at least until they figured it out).

Steve – I think Al Shiney meant #5 within Shamus’ post, rather than the comments.